Last Updated on : November 23, 2014 | |||
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Where Do We Go When We
Die?
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IF you accept the religious beliefs held by nearly everyone until recent years, you would answer this question by saying, "It all depends; if we have done the right thing while we live, we shall go to heaven, of course; and if not, then to ----". Here, perhaps, you falter. You are not sure, but you think, to hell". Will it surprise you to be told that the answer is entirely untrue; that, in point of fact, when we die, we are DEAD, and go not anywhere, except to the grave, there to remain until the hour of resurrection arrives with the coming of Christ? It may even make you angry. But if you are of a reasonable mind, you will cool down, and ask, "Is it so?" You will enquire after the evidence, and if you search long enough, and thoroughly enough, and earnestly enough, you will find it. You will discover 1. That the body of man is man.
If the body of a man is man, then it follows that when the body dies, man dies, and that, consequently, it is impossible for a man at death to go to heaven or to hell. 2. That the life of man or the spirit of man is not man, but the invisible yet real energy or Power of God by which all creatures live.
If the life and spirit of man are not the man, but the power of God, by which the bodily man is enabled to live, it follows that the return of that life to God when death happens, is not the going back of the man, but the going back of the life which existed before the man was made. 3. That the Scriptures testify that no man has ever gone to heaven.
If David has not ascended to heaven, how can we hope to do so? 4. That according to the Scriptures, the dead have not yet entered into a state of reward.
If the dead are not in a state of reward, how can the popular doctrine be true which sends a man to his reward when he dies? 5. That according to the Scriptures, the dead are in a state of complete unconsciousness.
If the dead are unconscious, and have not even any remembrance of God, they cannot be enjoying heaven, or suffering in hell, as popular theology teaches. 6. That according to the Scriptures, the time for the dead to be judged and rewarded is at the resurrection, when Christ comes again to the earth.
The Lord Jesus Christ "shall judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom" (2 Tim. 4:1). Jesus says the hour is coming when those that are in the graves "shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:29; Dan. 12:2). If the dead are not to be judged till Christ comes, what room is there for a doctrine that sends them straight away to be rewarded as soon as they die? 7. That the reward of the righteous, besides immortality of nature, is inheritance of the earth.
If the reward of the righteous is the inheritance of the earth, clearly that system must be wrong which teaches that their reward is to go to "mansions above the skies". Look into the matter, and deliver yourself from tradition, and embrace the glorious truths contained in the Scriptures.
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